SPIN magazine is going crazy with its July issue, celebrating the
25th anniversary of Prince's "Purple Rain" with a comprehensive
oral history of the film and album and a free downloadable tribute
that features nine bands doing song-for-song covers of the record's
classic tracks.
Dubbed "Purplish Rain," the nine song tribute album boasts a real
coup: Apollonia, the one-time Prince protege who starred in the
film, contributes a cover of "When Doves Cry" that she recorded
with Greg Dulli and his band, the Twilight Singers. Other cover
versions on the album include Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings doing
"Take Me With You," Of Montreal's take on "Computer Blue," a
punk-mariachi version of "I Would Die 4 U" and Lavender Diamond's
rendition of the title track.
The Apollonia/Dulli duet is
currently streaming at SPIN.com, and the full downloadable
album will be available when the magazine hits the streets on June
23. The album download is free, but a clue from the magazine
article will be required for access.
"We approached a bunch of bands, and we got nine who were really
into it," Doug Brod, SPIN's Editor-in-Chief told Billbaord.com.
"All these bands did it for free - they paid for all of their
recording time and they mastered all the tracks themselves." Unlike
several other Prince cover records that have run afoul of The
Artist's wishes, SPIN cleared all of the tracks and are covering
the royalty expenses.
The 10-page oral history was compiled and written by Brian Raftery,
who spoke to most of the key participants in the original project,
including Wendy and Lisa, other members of the Revolution and the
Time, Rob Cavallo (the film's producer and Prince's manager at the
time), director Albert Magnoli, and the original screenplay writer
William Blynn. Prince and the Time's main man Morris Day did not
participate.
"We did a full court press to get Prince himself involved," said
Brod. "He's a pretty tough guy to get a hold of, and he doesn't
dwell much on nostalgia."